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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23970223">parallelograms</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/agrestenoir/pseuds/agrestenoir'>agrestenoir</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Half of It (2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Coming of Age, F/F, Getting Together, Love Letters, Post-Canon, Romance, Unresolved Sexual Tension</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 17:28:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>11,226</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23970223</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/agrestenoir/pseuds/agrestenoir</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>She heads South. Ellie heads East. They’re just two people on a perpendicular line who may never come back around to meet again.</p><p>Aster tries to be okay with that.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aster Flores &amp; Paul Munsky, Ellie Chu &amp; Aster Flores, Ellie Chu/Aster Flores</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>119</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1245</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Aster Flores leaves Squahamish on a Tuesday night in late July, staring out the window until the town is but a dot on the map, and lets the shooting stars carry her wishes all the way to California.  </p><p>Her cousin in Sacramento offered her housing when she got into art school, and she’s more than happy to accept it. Her parents wish her well, her father hugs her tight, and she packs two suitcases and takes her portfolio to the edges of Squahamish and leaves before a new day dawns.</p><p>Aster will not waste time when she’s spent the last four years being complacent with what life and love have to offer her, so she decides to make her own path.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Aster meets Paul at their diner before she leaves. “What made you be brave enough to send me a letter in the first place?” she asks softly, quizzical eyes trained on his.</p><p>Paul simply stirs his chocolate milkshake with a fry in silence before shooting her a sheepish smile. “Not sure,” he tells her. “It just felt like the right time, almost like… I couldn’t breathe anymore, you know? And writing it all down helped.”</p><p>“I thought Ellie wrote that,” she says. Aster’s honestly not sure what’s true anymore—Ellie Chu has that effect on people, it seems.</p><p>“That was the second one—the one you actually got.” Now, he shakes his head and slurps at his drink, whipped cream tickling his upper lips. “I wrote another one first, but I never sent it. It wasn’t that great.”</p><p>Aster bites into her own fry, chews it over with her thoughts. “What did that one say?”</p><p>Paul snorts. “Basically that I’d love you even if you were ugly.”</p><p>His blunt confession startles a laugh out of her, leaves her chest sputtering like a dead engine turning over in some last vestige of life. There’s a short beat of silence, almost natural between the two of them now, before Paul joins in.</p><p>“You want to know something, Munsky?” she says to him right as they pay their bills and head for the door. She drags her luggage behind her, bag clutched close. “No one’s ever told me that before.”</p><p>He’s quiet, but she can tell he wants to ask her one last thing before she leaves. She nods in his direction, giving him the go-ahead, because for all the ways that Paul Munsky sucks with words, he makes up for in the way he can read a person—from their gaze, to their smile, to their tone.</p><p>“Would you have given me a chance?” he asks softly, reaching out and winding their fingers together to squeeze her hand tight. “If I had led with that—do you think things would’ve turned out differently for us?” This new thing they’re all trying—honesty—looks good on him.</p><p>“I’m not sure.” Aster shrugs, dark hair spilling into her line of vision, but she doesn’t brush it out of the way. She’s always been good at hiding, and despite what she promised Ellie, it hasn’t been a few years yet so she has an excuse for not changing right away.</p><p>(She has many a chances still.)</p><p>Aster’s phone buzzes in her pocket, and she knows her time is coming to a close. With a small smile, she untangles her hand from Paul and presses a quick kiss to the apple of his cheek. “I don’t know what would’ve happened, but I like to think that we’re at least going in the direction we’re meant to now.”</p><p>He resigns himself, accepting her answer as the only one he’ll ever get. “Take care, Aster.”</p><p>“See you around, Munsky.” She gives him a two-finger salute as she turns on her heel, finally heading towards the train station and the rest of her life.</p><p><em>Say hello to Ellie for me</em>, she wants to add but doesn’t.</p><p>They said all they needed to the last time they saw each other.</p><p>(Her lips still tingle from where Ellie kissed her. It’s enough.)</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>She heads South. Ellie heads East. They’re just two people on a perpendicular line who may never come back around to meet again.</p><p>Aster tries to be okay with that.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>In her first year of college, Aster sits in the back of the classroom, graphite across a blank canvas, and draws whatever her mind lingers on. Most of the time, it’s the light streaming through the stained glass in her father’s church or the smoke that puffs from the back of Trig’s old truck. She doesn’t mean to dwell on old things, of ghosts she’s long since exorcised, but all she can think about is home.</p><p>As much as she wanted to leave, she misses it. A part of her always will.</p><p>In the room she rents at her cousin’s apartment, she stares in the mirror and sees the soft smile of a girl who read books in church, who found comfort in the thick hoodies that Trig favored, who wore white-knit sweaters during the winter because all the other girls did too. It’s been a long time since she recognized that girl in the mirror, and California hasn’t changed that.</p><p>On a whim, she meets with a friend, Marissa, from her art history class, and they head to the salon down the street from campus. Hours later, Aster comes home with dark curls tinted red—the color of the sunset burning low over the forest in Squahamish, the color of wine in church, the color of Ellie Chu’s shirt plastered wet against her skin that afternoon they floated together in the hot springs.</p><p>“What do you think?” Marissa asks her, fluffing Aster’s curls over her shoulders.</p><p>She twirls a lock around her finger, watching the color glint under the fluorescent lighting. “It’s perfect,” she says because it’s all she can.</p><p>That night, she stands in front of a blank canvas and dips her hands into paint, leaves red handprints and streaks across a golden background. Stepping away, she looks at the picture that burns like fire, an exploding shooting star, Fate’s hand that touched the sun.</p><p><em>It’s perfect</em>, she thinks to herself, and that’s that.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>That summer, Aster comes back to Squahamish and finds that nothing has changed.</p><p>Her father still speaks his sermons, the rest of her family keeping busy, but she doesn’t join them at the church services. Trig works at Carson Gravel, and she successfully manages to avoid becoming a trace on his radar the whole two months she stays. Paul is the only one who seeks her out, the rest of the people from high school going on like dust to the wind, scattered and pointless and all very much the same.</p><p>He’s kneading dough in a bowl in his kitchen, flour painted across the bridge of his nose from constant fumbling. “Did you miss it here?” he asks, shooting her a curious look.</p><p>Aster shrugs helplessly and can’t stop herself from staring out the window, surprised not to see the race of the city but instead a reaping forest. “Home has its perks, I suppose.”</p><p>“Knew you’d miss me,” he says.</p><p>She laughs, shaking her head. “You’re not that impressive, you know.” Her gaze flickers around his kitchen, searching for some answer to a question she’s too afraid to voice quite yet. At this point in time, Aster can’t equate Paul without Ellie, and thinking about Ellie Chu <em>does</em> things to her she’s not ready to face.</p><p>(She’s not ready—it’s too soon. That’s all it boils down to.)</p><p>Suddenly, there’s a cloud of white that hits her in the face, makes her eyes water, and her breath to come out in a loud squawk. Paul leans over his bowl of dough, laughing and laughing as his own tears stream down his face.</p><p>“Oh, that’s how you wanna play it, Munsky?” Aster says and pinches a bit of flour in her fingers from the open bag and rushes towards him. “It’s on.”</p><p>Home looks the same, but Aster has changed.</p><p>She wonders, by the next time she visits, if it’ll even be <em>home</em> anymore.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Aster is at a party the next time she kisses a girl.</p><p>Punch-drunk and sweaty, she stands in the middle of the dancefloor with Marissa’s hands on her hips, her own looped around her friend’s neck without a care to whoever’s watching them. The two have been giggling over the boys who stare at them from across the room, and Aster watches them right back, at their sloping shoulders and sharp smiles. In a way, they remind her of Trig and Paul, of all the boys she should’ve loved before, and all the chances she’s missed out since coming to Sacramento.</p><p>Marissa’s voice is hot against the shell of her ear. “I’m way too gay for their shit right now.” Her breath smells like vodka and fruit cocktails, and it tickles Aster’s nose.</p><p>She thinks of Paul Munksy the first time he decided to slip a letter into her locker, the cute boy who kissed her after their second date, all clammy hands and shaky smiles. She thinks of Ellie Chu with the squeaky spokes of her bike as she walks away, who turned back towards her with fire in her eyes and kissed her without a care in the world.</p><p>Aster wants to be brave like them.</p><p>So she leans down and says, “Maybe I am too.”</p><p>There’s a short pause, the span of a single heartbeat, and then Aster kisses Marissa in front of everyone at the party.</p><p>Marissa tastes like raspberries. Ellie tastes like vanilla.</p><p>Aster doesn’t know which she likes better.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>“I talked to Ellie yesterday,” Paul says to her in December of her second year of college over Skype.</p><p>Aster glances at the screen, face streaked with splotches of blue and black paint, and quirks a brow high in confusion. “Oh yeah?”</p><p>Broad-shouldered and quick as lightning Paul Munsky flashes her that stupid sweet smile—still the same as she left him. She’s taken to texting him during her years away in Sacramento, catching a few dinners and football games with him during her breaks from school, spending long hours talking about everything and nothing on the phone. If you’d told seventeen-year-old Aster Flores that Paul would end up being one of her best friends, she would’ve never believed you.</p><p>“She’s coming home for winter break,” he tells her. “You should come up too, and we could all go to get dinner together.”</p><p>Aster’s paintbrush trembles in her hand. “I’ve got a couple projects I need to finish.”</p><p>Paul simply shrugs and treks away towards another point of conversation, and he doesn’t see the way that Aster stares at the picture in front of her—the chaotic water-colored angel falling from the sky, wrapped in scraps of red and black. Between the colors, quotes from <em>Remains of the Day</em> give shape and structure to the monstrosity.</p><p>It feels like she’s scooped out every thought and emotion that she has cradled close in the last eighteen months and put it to canvas. It’s her doubt and confusion, her faith and strengths, the quiet words she prays at night and the laughter from Marissa that makes her heart sing. It’s the smell of spices in Paul’s kitchen over summer break and the sharp acrylic stains that won’t come off no matter how hard she scrubs in the sink.</p><p>It’s everything and more—what she hopes for, what she’s lost, the things she believes in.</p><p>It all makes her think of Ellie Chu.</p><p><em>Did you find something to believe in yet, Ellie Chu? </em>she wonders, staring at the falling angel, and suddenly it’s like she’s seventeen in the hot springs all over again.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>She sleeps with Marissa at the tender age of twenty.</p><p>The two lay between sweat-tangled sheets afterwards with blown eyes and hoarse voices. Aster can’t stop kissing her, leaving a bruised story written between the bones of her ribs from navel to neck, just to whisper secrets against the shell of her ear. Marissa murmurs the same sweet nothings right back to her, though neither have much to say in terms of sustenance.</p><p>It’s just how much they like each other, how much they like being <em>with </em>each other. There’s a difference, Aster reckons, between how she feels for Marissa and how she once felt for Trig. Her ex-fiancé left her feeling hollow and whole at the same time, but Marissa just makes her feel <em>happy</em>. With Marissa, she feels like she can be herself, and that’s the only kind of Aster Flores that her roommate has ever known.</p><p>Outside, the world is asleep, but Aster is awake with thoughts. Marissa slumbers against her, face tucked against her shoulder.</p><p><em>I hope you found someone that makes you happy, Ellie Chu</em>, she admits to the night sky and lets the shooting stars take her wishes to Iowa.</p><p>She’s not sure where that thought comes from, but she won’t take it back.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>The thing about parallelograms, Aster learns, is that even though opposite sides run away together, they all come back to the start eventually.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>A few years pass.</p><p>Art school gives her what she needs—the confidence, the challenge, the choices—everything she wants in order to be the person she so much wishes she could be. Eventually, the girl who left Squahamish on a train is but a stranger, and the girl who comes back with tattoos and a stronger hold on faith can’t even find home in this small town anymore.</p><p>Things have changed. Aster has changed.</p><p>“So you moving back here for good?” Paul asks her over fries and shakes at their diner.</p><p>“Got a job offer in Los Angeles actually,” she tells him. “I’m moving there at the end of the month. Thought I’d come visit my parents for a few weeks before then though.”</p><p>Paul laughs, shaking his head. “That’s fucking hilarious.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Because that’s where Ellie is now. You remember Ellie Chu, right?” And Aster knows Paul is joking because they’re both well-acquainted with the force that is Ellie Chu, but <em>God</em> does that name do things to her.</p><p>Aster Flores has not seen or heard from Ellie Chu in years, but she thinks about her from time-to-time. Try as she might (and there have times she truly has), she can’t forget the first girl who ever kissed her, the first person who actually saw her, the first who understood her and all that she could be. She owes Ellie a great deal, not that she’d ever admit that, so she can’t help but wonder what Ellie would think if she saw her again.</p><p><em>It’s been a few years</em>, Aster thinks. <em>I’m here, so where are you, Chu?</em></p><p>“Los Angeles is a big city,” she tells Paul. “I’ll probably never see her.”</p><p>“You gonna put money on that?”</p><p>Aster would be stupid to bet against Paul Munksy, the only player to ever score for Squahamish in the last five years, but she does anyway.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p>She loses the bet within three weeks.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>But it’s Ellie Chu’s voice that comes in on the tail-end of the February wind and whispers things about bravery. It comes from a girl who pushed her to head to Sacramento and pursue art, to break off her engagement with Trig for a chance at happiness and fulfillment, to fall in love and get her heart broken, to live her life in the boldest strokes possible.</p><p>“What do you want?” the tattoo artist asks.</p><p>“Give me wings,” Aster says. “I want to learn to fly.”</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for such the warm reception! I'm so glad you all enjoy this story! </p><p>Here's the next installment! Feel free to contact me @agrestenoir on tumblr or @thirdstrikes on Twitter to talk! &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Twenty-one and tipsy, Aster stumbles with Paul down a brick-lay walkway of Sacramento, tugging on his wrist as they head towards the tattoo parlor at the end of the block. A few months from graduating college, and all she can think about is the ghost of Marissa’s hand heavy on her hip and the lips that burned like fire against hers.</p><p>Their break-up is still fresh in her mind, enough that Aster feels like she’s suffocating on the smoke from the memory of Marissa. Having Paul come to visit is the first step along the road to recovery. He bought her all her drinks tonight as they bar hopped around downtown, throwing caution to the wind and just letting loose for the first time in a long while.</p><p>“Okay,” Paul tells her at their fourth bar as she sips a glass of water to try to calm down, but the world is still fuzzy around her. “Let’s do one thing tonight that we’d never <em>ever</em> do normally.”</p><p>“Besides sleep together?” Aster quips, thinking back to that messy spring break when she was nineteen and lonely. The two of them had been back in Squahamish at the tail-end of March and decided to cut loose; their descent to intimacy had been like a freefall, fast and furious but so much fun. It’s not what she wants, but it was also nice to be with a friend.</p><p>Paul snorts over his Coors. “Already crossed that off the bucket list.”</p><p>She just laughs. “We should just do something crazy.”</p><p>“Like?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” she says, shaking her head in a rush. “Like… make out with a bartender, or take a road trip to Vegas.”</p><p>“Or get tattoos,” Paul supplies helpfully, and she’s never sure if he’s serious because she doesn’t ask. One of her classmates works at a tattoo parlor a few blocks south, and that’s all she needs to know.</p><p>When she gets in the chair after Paul, fresh ink of a taco on the back of his thigh that has her laughing uncontrollably, she’s met with a plethora of designs to choose from. Paul nudges her side, pushing her to get a matching taco so they can be twins. Her father’s voice in her head tells her that she’s making a stupid decision while her mother recites her favorite lines from her favorite books. Marissa makes her think of sunshine and rainbows, all the ingredients to the perfectly happy disaster they’d once been.</p><p>But it’s Ellie Chu’s voice that comes in on the tail-end of the February wind and whispers things about bravery. It comes from a girl who pushed her to head to Sacramento and pursue art, to break off her engagement with Trig for a chance at happiness and fulfillment, to fall in love and get her heart broken, to live her life in the boldest strokes possible.</p><p>“What do you want?” the artist asks.</p><p>“Give me wings,” Aster says. “I want to learn to fly.”</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Fresh in Los Angeles, just settling into her new apartment, Aster fumbles with the keys in the sticky lock when the sound of footsteps along the squeaky floorboards down the hall startles her. She raises a hand with a smile, eager to greet her neighbor, when the world tilts on its side.</p><p>The woman in front of her is beautiful—in a way that leaves her breathless and blind. Dark eyes sparkle over wire-rimmed glasses in the dim hallway lighting, all long legs and soft curves, everything that Aster loves in a woman. She lingers on the messy bun and wrinkled flannel, the messenger bag pressed against the woman’s side, the black ink stains on the back of her palms, and the pink <em>oh!</em> of her lips.</p><p>Ellie Chu.</p><p>“Aster Flores,” comes Ellie’s shaky voice, soft with surprise, and it’s not a question but an observation. Ellie has always been careful with her words and tone, knows when to start and stop even if she stumbles along the way.</p><p>“Ellie Chu, hello,” Aster responds, too numb to really comprehend what’s happening. Paul had joked about it, pressed cents upon cents to their conversations, just waiting for the moment that’s been four years in the making. He must have known that they were in the same apartment complex, having helped Aster move in, and still refused to say anything.</p><p>You’d think that Aster would know not to bet against Paul Munsky, but alas, here she stands in a deserted hallway with Ellie Chu, feeling stupid and seventeen all over again.</p><p>“You’re—” <em>Gorgeous. </em>“—here.” Aster is at a loss for words. This has never happened before.</p><p>“Uhm, hi?” Ellie responds, equally as speechless. That, also, has never happened before.</p><p>(But it has, it has, <em>it has</em>. Aster remembers a hallway encounter, the worn press of dog-eared pages of <em>Remains of the Day</em> against her skin, staring at Ellie and watching her open her mouth to speak volumes but only manage a whisper. She remembers the way her own heart fluttered, the fragile smile, the way she’s felt about Ellie Chu for the last five years.)</p><p>Kazuo Ishiguro said it best: “If you are under the impression you have already perfected yourself, you will never rise to the heights you are no doubt capable of.” Ellie had pushed her to climb and fly, to let go and give gravity a chance to take hold, and how to fall safely and fully and so completely into someone else. Aster knows that if it wasn’t for Ellie, she would’ve never become the person she is today, but how can she tell someone she hasn’t spoken to in years all this and more?</p><p>Ellie Chu was her turning point.</p><p>“Paul mentioned you were LA,” Aster says, a warm smile stretching across her face. “But he didn’t mention we were living in the same apartment complex.”</p><p>The look on Ellie’s face is indiscernible. “You talked to Paul about me?”</p><p>“He’s one of my best friends,” is all Aster can give her. “I talk to him about a lot of things.”</p><p>“Oh.” Ellie looks at the apartment door beside her, and <em>oh my god they’re neighbors. </em>There’s a short beat of silence as Aster clutches the keys tighter in her palm, turning the warm metal over between her fingers before shaking her head.</p><p>“Do you—”</p><p>“Would you—”</p><p>Both stop, their questions interrupting the others. Aster hears Ellie in her head, telling her to be bold, and presses forward at Ellie’s pause.</p><p>“Do you want to come over for coffee or something? If you’re not busy right now, or later if you are?” She cocks her head towards the apartment door, her dark curls brushing her shoulders. “Catch up and stuff?”</p><p>“Oh.” Ellie nods frantically. “Sure, sure, that’d be… That’d be <em>great. </em>It’s been a while.”</p><p>Neither mentions the last time they saw each other—standing on either side of a vacant street, too afraid to say anything else other than what was needed, a heated kiss that spoke of what-ifs and possibilities. The <em>See you in a couple years!</em> thrown over the back of Ellie’s shoulder as she pedaled away on her bike, squeaky spokes and all, as Aster walked away and tried to figure out why her lips hadn’t stopped buzzing.</p><p>“I’m just gonna drop this stuff off in my apartment and take care of some things,” Ellie says, shouldering her bag higher. “I can come over in like an hour? Or we could go out? I know this cool coffee shop down the street. It’s where I do a lot of my writing actually. Because that’s what I do—I’m a writer.”</p><p>“Oh?” Aster has heard bits and pieces of Ellie’s life from Paul, but it’s so different now that she’s actually <em>here</em>. “What do you write?”</p><p>“Songs, mostly.” She shrugs and shakes her head. “Some stuff for some blogs. I’m making great work of my English degree, that’s for sure.”</p><p>“That’s so great, Ellie. You write good,” Aster tells her, and she can’t stop that smile from flitting across her face, fast and quick like a hummingbird. Looking at Ellie—so alive and present in a way she never was in Squahamish—it does things to her stupid heart. “I’ll meet you out here in an hour then, yeah? It’ll do me some good to get out and see the city.”</p><p>The expression on Ellie’s face is blinding. “Sounds great.” The other woman slips into her apartment, closing the door softly with a click behind her, but Aster keeps staring at the space she once vacated with that stupid, sappy smile.</p><p>With a loud groan, she thumps her forehead against her own apartment door. “‘<em>You write good</em>.’ Who the fuck says that?” she says to herself.</p><p>She’s screwed. So screwed.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>“You’ve reached Paul Munsky, but I’m out doing the Lord’s work, so I can’t come to the phone right now. Leave a message, and I’ll call you back!”</p><p>Aster’s voice is sharp enough to cut through steel. “You’re dead to me, Munksy. So fucking dead.”</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>The mathematical tendency of perpendicular lines is to cross only once. The tendency of soulmates is to always be together.</p><p>Aster wonders where she and Ellie fall on this graph.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>The bell above the door of the quaint coffee shop dings as Aster and Ellie enter and head towards the counter to order. The smell of vanilla and cinnamon tickles Aster’s nose, and she’s swept away in the ease of the environment, familiar in a way that makes her think of Paul and their diner back in Squahamish.</p><p>By the time they’ve collected their drinks and found a small table in the corner, Aster has learned many of things about a certain Ellie Chu—about the best years of her life at Grinnell, the close circle of friends that spans across the country, about the string of girlfriends she left in her wake (which was only three, but it’s still more experience than Aster has had in her twenty-two years).</p><p>“Damn, Iowa certainly changed you,” Aster laughs in the coffee shop that first day. “Who would have ever thought that Ellie Chu would turn out to be a major player?”</p><p>“I don’t think it changed me.” Ellie crinkles her nose over her cup of tea, and Aster can’t help but find that adorable (and it’s <em>so unfair</em>). “Aside from the fact that if I ever see a corn cob again, I might lose my shit. Otherwise, Iowa was just a place I could be myself, you know? There was just so many people like me that it was easy to be who I wanted. It’s probably the first time I thought that I fit in somewhere.”</p><p>Aster circles the rim of her coffee cup with a shaky finger, lost in thought. “That’s one thing I always admired about you growing up, you know? That you were always so sure of who you were.”</p><p>Ellie snorts, shaking her head. “No, I’ve never been sure about myself.” She quirks a brow high and stares at Aster pointedly. “Only about what I wanted.”</p><p>Aster can’t stop the laugh that explodes from the cloying tightness of her chest like a firework because she knows exactly how true that is. One of the major differences that she can already tell about Ellie is that she’s gone from the girl who knows what she wants to the girl who acts upon it. She’s done exactly what she told Aster to do—dared herself to be bold.</p><p>“So what do you do?” Ellie asks, eager to change the topic from her own messy relationships and college chances. “Paul said you were in LA for a job?”</p><p>“Yeah, I got a job offer here as an illustrator downtown, and I do some freelance work on the side.”</p><p>Ellie hums at her response, nodding along. “Was LA the only place you had job offers?”</p><p>Aster shrugs helplessly, taking a sip of coffee to hide her expression. “I got some job offers around the Sacramento area and up in Seattle, but I just needed to… get away from it all, I guess? LA seemed like the perfect chance to just let loose for a little while, give myself a change of pace.”</p><p>“Yeah, LA is certainly nice.” There’s a furrow between Ellie’s brow, questions etched into the marble-smooth features of her face, but she restrains herself from asking them.</p><p>Aster doesn’t mean to be purposefully vague about <em>why</em> she came to LA exactly over staying in Sacramento with family and friends, but the direction she ended up taking in her life is so closely tied to Ellie Chu that she’s almost afraid to hear her response to everything that happened. The part of her that tried to cling to Trig and Squahamish screams excuses at an earsplitting volume, but part that Ellie Chu chiseled out of her—the one that Aster sculpted and Paul painted, the part that Marissa breathed life into—whispers for her to tell the truth.</p><p>“I just got out of a long term relationship,” Aster says. Something unclenches in her heart to finally admit it to the girl she always wanted to hear it. “As much as I love Sacramento, I just couldn’t stay in the same place that I knew she’d be.”</p><p>Ellie, who’d been taking a large sip of tea while still maintaining eye contact, chokes and spits her drink across the table, coughing hoarsely. Aster is too stunned to move, and all she can do is make sure that her neighbor is still breathing. She’s half out of her seat by the time that Ellie can draw in a gasping breath, eyes red and watering.</p><p>“Sorry,” Ellie rasps. “Went down the wrong pipe.”</p><p>“Everyone seems to have that reaction when I tell them I date women too,” Aster muses. “Paul did the same thing.”</p><p>Ellie stares at her in a daze. “How’d he react?” she asks, taking another sip of tea to calm her avenging throat.</p><p>“He choked on his own sausage.”</p><p>Ellie chokes again. Aster just laughs.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Aster does know this: she and Ellie could never be just simple parallel lines.</p><p>Neither run straight.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>The letter comes the next week, slipped under her door in the early hours of the morning.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Aster, </em>
</p><p>
  
  <em>I don’t know what hours artists keep, but there’s something about you leaving as soon as the sun goes up and coming back long after the moon rises that makes it absolutely impossible to talk to you. You should give me your number. </em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Ellie.</em>
</p><p><em>Ellie Chu. In case there’s any doubt</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Aster can’t fight the smile that builds inside her, happiness slipping out as easy as her breath that hangs heavy in the morning air. Ellie’s letter, hastily written on a piece of loose leaf paper, is held between her hands, edges crinkled and worn from how many times she’s read it. There’s something about the familiarity—in the handwriting, in those words—everything that she should’ve held close the first time but didn’t that makes her heart flutter something familiar.</p><p>(If she truly thinks about it, it all reminds her of those mornings after in Marissa’s arms, but that’s not possible. Ellie Chu was her first, but that doesn’t mean she’s her future too.)</p><p>So she replies.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Ellie Chu—as if there’s any doubt about you,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Here’s my number.</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>“Do your parents know?” Paul asks her as they sit on the backsteps of his parents’ home, shivering in the blistery chill of the Squahamish winter air when she comes home for Christmas break her junior year of college. “That you’re dating your roommate?”</p><p>“My mom does, but we haven’t told my dad,” Aster acknowledges, nudging a small pile of gravel with the tip of her boots. With a long sigh, she folds forward, resting her elbows against her knees as her body crumbles. “She just likes to pretend that it doesn’t exist, like I never told her in the first place. I think a part of her wishes I didn’t.”</p><p>“To be fair, I wish you didn’t tell me when you did,” Paul chimes in, his eyes glazed over as he drifts back to the nightmare of her coming out just hours ago. “You could’ve just waited until after I finished eating. Those were dark times, Aster.”</p><p>She punches him in the side. “Oh my god, Munsky, you were fine—”</p><p>“I choked on my own sausage!”</p><p>There’s silence as his retort settles in, both of them looking at the other with baited breath, before they explode into laughter. It’s gasping breathes, heaving shoulders, holding onto each other for dear life. God, Aster is so thankful at times to have a friend like Paul Munsky—someone who will make her laugh when all she wants to do is cry.</p><p>By the time they’ve settled down, both are reclined against the steps and close to drifting off. “Don’t tell Ellie,” she murmurs into the fabric of Paul’s jacket. “I know you guys are best friends, but…”</p><p>“Don’t you think—out of anyone here—she’s one of the only people who would understand?” Paul asks softly, brushing his nose against her temple. “Maybe talking to her about this could be good for you guys. You left things a little bitter, didn’t you?”</p><p>Aster is quiet for another moment, lost in the silent reverie that has a tendency to haunt her when it comes to matters of the heart and Ellie Chu. “Ellie kissed me,” she finally relents, closing her eyes tightly and leaning closer to him. “Right before she left Squahamish.”</p><p>Paul’s response takes her by surprise. “Did you like it?”</p><p>“Yeah,” she says, fragile in the hollowing winds of a breaking storm. “I did.”</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Weeks trickle by.</p><p>Autumn slips in like a quiet snowfall, crisp and clean to follow the summer hurricane that was Ellie crashing back into her life. Not a day goes by without Aster seeing or hearing from Ellie, such a stark contrast from the last five years where they spent their time discovering their selves away from the prison that was Squahamish. They haunt coffee shops on the weekends, share take-out Chinese foods from the restaurant down the road, and routinely barge into each other’s apartments for fashion advice.</p><p>Aster bangs on Ellie’s door on a Saturday morning just after the break of dawn, standing in the deserted hallway in a camisole and holding two different dress choices in front of her. She kicks on the door again and again until the grumbling of one tired Ellie Chu stands in front of her, glaring with red and watery eyes.</p><p>“Why are you banging on my door at butt crack in the morning?”</p><p>“I have a date in two hours, and I can’t decide which looks best.” Aster presents both dresses in front of her: a mixed floral print while the other is a simple maroon kaleidoscope. “I’ve been at this for half an hour. <em>Help me</em>.”</p><p>“I like the red…” Ellie’s voice trails off, her gaze flickering from the dresses to Aster herself. “Is…” She licks her lips before speaking in a hoarse voice. “Is that deciduous?”</p><p>“No, I think it’s tulips?” Aster replies, staring at the floral dress with a critical eyes, and wonders if it even matters. Does the dress say something crude in flower language?</p><p>“No, not the dress. <em>That</em>.”</p><p>Ellie suddenly lurches forward, pressing a hand against her right shoulder with her palm settling about the swell of Aster’s breast. Her thumb strokes the pattern of leaves that hangs over her collarbone, a simple black and white design recently added to her growing collection of tattoos. She’d been planning to extend the design down the slope of her bicep, have it hang over the angel wings that sprout from her shoulder blades.</p><p>“I’m not sure,” Aster responds softly, staring at Ellie’s hand on her chest. “I was just drawing it one day and decided I liked it.”</p><p>“You designed that?” Ellie chokes out.</p><p>“I’ve designed all of them.”</p><p>“<em>All</em> of them?” By now, Ellie’s face is bright red, and Aster wonders if she’s dying.</p><p>“I’ve got a lot of tattoos,” Aster tells her, stepping back and lifting up her camisole a ways to show off the designs that encircle her hips and climb up her ribcage. There’s handprints and angel wings, stars and vines, all a delicate balance that speaks of her journey of transformation written on her skin. Her tattoos are probably some of Aster’s greatest accomplishments (and a part of her desperately hopes that Ellie is too).</p><p>“The red one,” Ellie finally gasps after a short moment of studying her tattoos. She won’t even look at Aster anymore. “Red brings out your eyes.”</p><p>“Are you sure?"</p><p>“I have to go take care of myself,” Ellie blurts out. “Enjoy your date.” She slams the door in Aster’s face without even some semblance of a goodbye, and it leaves her starstruck and wondering.</p><p>She can’t get the look on Ellie’s face out of her mind the entire date. At the end, Aster isn’t even sure what her date’s name was. All she can think about was the warm press of Ellie’s touch against her skin, how it lit her up inside like a raging inferno, and she has no hopes of extinguishing it without months of tears and therapy.</p><p>(She asks herself if it even matters. Apparently all Aster even cares about is Ellie Chu now a days anyway.)</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>After a long week, Aster joins Ellie in her friend’s apartment, lounges on the couch with a bottle of strawberry vodka and listens to Ellie wax poetic about the intricacies of the modern workforce and how it affects the fragile ecosystem that is humanity. Eventually they switch to more serious topics—the skeletons they locked in closets, how their first loves made them feel, how their parents handled their coming out, and everything about Squahamish that made them want to leave.</p><p>Aster can only close her eyes and lay there, trying to remember the sound of Ellie’s voice to comfort her on lonely nights, remember the feeling that she sparks in her chest and just wants to nurture it to a warm glow. There’s a kinship that she’s found in Ellie that she never thought possible, something that speaks to more than just hopeless fantasies and those lost what-ifs.</p><p>“What’s one regret you have?” Ellie asks suddenly, startling Aster from her quiet reverie. She leans her head back against the couch cushion, dark eyes smoldering as they meet hers. Her skin is flushed from the alcohol, but her words are as steady as always.</p><p>The soft intimacy of the moment makes something ache in Aster’s chest. “That’s a hard question.”</p><p>“It can be anything. Not marrying Trig, or not taking that job in Sacramento or—”</p><p>Aster listens to Ellie drawl out suggestions, and it hits her just how much Ellie Chu knows about her past and her present and how much each event in her life weighs heavily on her. So she swallows hard before saying, “Not kissing you again.”</p><p>Aster blames it on the alcohol and proceeds to drink more vodka.</p><p>Ellie’s breath sputters and stops, like she can’t even begin to process the situation, and Aster can’t blame her. It’s just that ever since she got to LA, hung up on the island Marissa marooned her on, Ellie Chu has been the one constant in her everchanging life. Aster is <em>tired</em> of not knowing what could’ve happened if she’d only grabbed Ellie’s hand back in Squahamish at seventeen, pulled her close, and kissed her again.</p><p>Ellie slowly pushes herself to her knees so that she’s tall kneeling in front of Aster, eyes flickering between hers and her lips. Aster sits up in front of Ellie, and they’re both lost in the pounding heartbeats and racing thoughts of two people perched on a precipice.</p><p>“I…” Aster tries to find her voice. “I don’t know why I said that.”</p><p>Ellie can only stare at her for a moment, and then her expression switches to something fierce. She grabs a fistful of Aster’s hoodie and wraps a strong arm around her hips to pull her close, and then presses her mouth—hard and fast—against Aster’s.</p><p>Ellie’s lips are soft and taste like vanilla chapstick, her mouth something minty that Aster seeks to explore further as she licks inside. The strength of Ellie’s kiss forces Aster to shuffle back against the couch cushions, and Ellie pulls away for just a moment to climb up and straddle her legs.</p><p>“Do you really wanna do this?” Aster asks her suddenly as Ellie presses forward, kissing along her jawline and down to her collarbone. “We’ve both been drinking.”</p><p>“I know what I’m doing, Flores,” Ellie says in a rush.</p><p>Her fingers drum against Aster’s tattoos like she’s playing the piano, soft and purposeful, a lullaby of touch and physicality that makes Aster want to sing. Aster lets out an unsteady breath, her heart thumping loudly in her chest, and just shakes her head. She kisses Ellie back—just like she did all those years ago—and wraps her arms around her shoulders to pull her down and closer.</p><p>They both sink into one another's embrace, jumping off the precipice. </p><p>Aster flies.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Parallelograms have four points, their togetherness and synchronicity forming something strong, but it’s still only four strokes.</p><p>Aster doesn’t know where to place the fifth.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>One more chapter left! Feel free to talk to me about these nerds on twitter @thirdstrikes!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Aster calls Paul up one November morning and nervously chews on the end of her fingernail until he picks up. “How do you have sex with a woman?” she asks him, breathless and panicked. The silence that answers is enough to make her heart leap into her throat. “Are you there, Munsky?”</p><p>She hears him swallow on the other end of the line. “It’s six o’clock in the morning, Aster.”</p><p>“Yes, but I have my third date with Marissa <em>tonight</em>, and I need time to prepare.” She runs a hand through her red-tinted locks, shorn so short that the curls just brush the tips of her shoulders. “You know what they say about the third date, and I need to be ready in case something happens, and—”</p><p>“Can’t…” Paul pauses again. “Can’t you just google this?”</p><p>“Google doesn’t know <em>shit</em>.”</p><p>“Aster.”</p><p>She shakes her head frantically, even though Paul can’t see her. “I’ve tried to google, but Google doesn’t know how to have sex with girls either. Google’s just listened to other people tell it how they have sex with girls, but Google’s never done it before.”</p><p>Paul’s voice comes across wry and dry. “I’m sure the other people who tell Google stuff know more about this than me.”</p><p>“Yeah, but…” Her voice trails off. “I don’t trust those other people. I don’t know them. I know you though, and I trust you.”</p><p>Paul is quiet for a moment, taken back from her rare show of affection. “Thanks, Aster.”</p><p>“No problem.” She twirls an absent curl around her index finger and plunders ahead. “So sex with girls—do I need to buy a dildo? There’s a sex toy shop next to the grocery store I go to—”</p><p>“<em>Aster!</em>”</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>“Ellie, <em>god</em>,” Aster manages to croak, her words lost in a garble as Ellie presses her back against the couch cushions. She lost her shirt a while back between kisses, and her leggings are hanging off of one ankle, but that doesn’t stop her from trying to have a coherent conversation with her neighbor. “You know what you’re doing?”</p><p>Ellie pulls away and stares at her like she’s stupid. “I have you half-naked, and I’m still fully clothed. I’d like to think I’m doing pretty good right now.”</p><p>“No, no,” Aster says as Ellie leans back in and tries to kiss her. This time, she puts a hand on the other woman’s chest, trying to garner her full attention. “I mean, do you know where we’re going with this?”</p><p>“The bedroom,” Ellie says with the confidence of a straight, white man.  </p><p>Aster’s poor confused heart doesn’t know how to react, thundering on aimlessly because Ellie has a tendency of throwing it off kilter. She tugs Ellie into her lap, hands dropping to her waist, and she leans up to whisper against Ellie’s lips. “I don’t usually do one night stands. If we’re doing this—”</p><p>“I’ve wanted this since I was eighteen,” Ellie tells her pointedly. “Trust me, I don’t plan on letting you go any time soon.”</p><p>It’s all the answer Aster needs. She kisses Ellie harder, opens her mouth without hesitation, and lets Ellie lick her way inside. The taste of strawberries from the alcohol they’ve been drinking sparks inspiration for Aster to paint—Ellie in Eden with golden sunlight under an apple tree—the cultivation of every prayer she’s said that went unanswered. Aster wants it all: sloping curves and miles of naked skin, long-drawn out moans from cherry-red lips, bruised fingerprints around her waist that anchor Ellie to her.</p><p>She wants Ellie Chu—so vividly and desperately—that it almost scares her.</p><p>“We should—” she tries to say, but Ellie cuts her off. She rubs her thumbs hard in the hollows behind Aster’s ears, like sliding a key into the right lock, and it sends shivers rocketing down her spine. “B-Bedroom. We should go to the bedroom.”</p><p>Ellie laughs. Aster wants to hear it forever.</p><p>“Come on, come on,” Ellie presses, pushing herself to her feet and tugging her own shirt off.</p><p>Aster reaches around and fumbles with the clasp of her bra, fingers shaking from the overwhelming desire and desperation that thrum through her veins. Tangled in the straps, still trying to shirk her leggings off, by the time she’s managed, Ellie is already crowding back into her orbit and kissing her again. One hand cups Ellie’s face to keep her close, pulling quiet moans from her lips, and Aster winds another into her hair and pulls Ellie’s ponytail free from its band. A curtain of dark hair falls around her, and Aster falls back just to look at her.</p><p>“God,” she murmurs, a prayer falling into the space between them. “You’re so beautiful.”</p><p>Like an angel cast in bronze, Ellie Chu is easily the most gorgeous woman that Aster has even met, all skin and bare bones for miles. She stands in front of her, the light from the television like a halo around her head setting her tousled hair on fire. Her eyes are dark with desire, piercing enough to peer into Aster’s soul, and her lips quirk into a knowing smile, edging her on.</p><p>It’s clear that Aster was right all those years ago. Only a heathen could be this tempting.</p><p>Ellie rests her hands on Aster’s shoulders, stroking down along the slopes of her arms and around the curves of her ribs and stop at bones of her hips. Her thumbs trace the shapes and contours of the tattoos, eyes flickering from design to design, eager to take it all in. Aster leans forward and kisses her, full of heat and ferocity, and tries not to lose herself in everything that is Ellie Chu.</p><p>“God,” Aster says again into Ellie’s open mouth.</p><p>It makes the other woman laugh. “I don’t think God’s here right now,” Ellie teases and offers her a hand.</p><p>“Lucky us,” Aster returns with a smile of her own, reaches out to tangle their fingers together, and lets Ellie lead her into the bedroom.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Aster can’t remember the last time she felt so comfortable.</p><p>Humming to herself, she snuggles deeper into the warm nest of covers, content to simply lay in bed for a little while longer. If it wasn’t for the throbbing in her head, this morning would be perfect. It’s written in the softness of the downy comforter, the springs of the mattress, the smell of fruity shampoo lingering in the fabric of her pillow. Everything—from the simple scents to the cotton blue cloud wrapped around her—speaks of perfection.</p><p>Her body is heavy and happy, and while she just wants to lay in bed and enjoy her first Saturday in what feels like forever, she knows that there is work to do. The inspiration from last night still hasn’t faded, burns hot at the forefront of her mind, and her fingers itch to pick up a paintbrush. A soft groan slips from her lips as she presses up on trembling elbows, burying her face into her pillow, and tries to pretend time doesn’t exist.</p><p>A voice sounds from beside her, words slurring slightly, “What time’s it?”</p><p><em>Ellie</em>, Aster thinks, and her heart grows warm.</p><p>Ellie shifts in bed, turning over onto her side with a muffled moan, and presses a warm foot into the back of Aster’s calf. Her morning haze fades, and she can only stare at the morning dream in front of her. An arm is strewn across her waist, fingers tracing light patterns into the smooth skin of her stomach. Hot puffs of air tickle the back of her neck from Ellie’s soft breathing, murmuring nonsense into the space between Aster’s head and the pillow.</p><p>Aster suddenly changes her mind about leaving. No painting could ever capture this.</p><p>“Go back to sleep,” Aster whispers to Ellie, brushing the tangled fringe away from her face.</p><p>Ellie huffs in protest and turns her face into the pillow, clearly not a morning person the way Aster is. Her heart aches something fierce, bangs pitifully against her rib cage in an attempt to escape, jumping into overdrive just from the sight of the other woman. With steady fingers, Aster strokes each along the contours of Ellie’s face: along her jawline, the between furrow of her brow, the swell of her cheeks, the lines of her lips, and the delicate skin of her eyelids.</p><p>The five boldest strokes she can make.</p><p><em>Who’d of ever thought I’d believe in you, heathen?</em> Aster thinks and lays back down to sleep next to Ellie.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>“You’ve reached Paul Munsky, but I’m out doing the Lord’s work, so I can’t come to the phone right now. Leave a message, and I’ll call you back!”</p><p>Aster’s laughter bubbles over from her end of the line. “You’ll never believe the <em>amazing</em> sex I just had with Ellie Chu, Munsky.”</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>It’s the first time they fall into bed together, but it’s not the only time.</p><p>They fuck their way across the hall and into Aster’s apartment eventually, spending lazy Sunday afternoons in orgasmic bliss and learn all the ways to make each other shiver. Ellie traces constellations in the freckles on Aster’s back while Aster touches every curve of Ellie until she knows the shapes and contours of her body with her eyes closed. It certainly makes her painting come easier when she tries to recreate the same image later.</p><p>Sometimes Aster forgets where she’s living, easily finding herself sprawled out on Ellie’s sofa watching Netflix on Tuesday nights while Ellie frantically tries to meet writing deadlines beside her. Thursday mornings, she’ll awake to find Ellie making breakfast in her kitchen, a cup of coffee already brewed and waiting for Aster at the island. Friday afternoons finds them on Ellie’s small balcony, leaning against each other with legs stuck between rod-iron railing and swinging over the scenery of Los Angeles.</p><p>Frankly, if you ask Aster, her home is quickly becoming wherever Ellie Chu is. She doesn’t like to put much thought about it beyond that. Her relationship with Ellie is one of the easiest she’s ever had—it’s like instinct, a habit she developed long ago.</p><p>Aster doesn’t want to change <em>anything</em>.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Marissa comes to visit one January day, and Aster spends the day introducing her to the sights of Los Angeles. While they’d buried the hatchet a while ago after the disastrous end to their relationship, Marissa is still one of the most important people to Aster, and she’s so incredibly happy that she didn’t completely lose her. That still doesn’t make the revelation of Aster’s current relationship status any easier though.</p><p>“So you’re dating again,” Marissa says over a vodka sprite as they cram together at the far end of a bar down the street from Aster’s work. It’s six o’clock in the evening, and while Aster typically doesn’t drink on Wednesday nights, Marissa’s always been one of her few exceptions.</p><p>“Someone I knew from back home,” Aster tells her as she sips the last dredges of her cocktail. The conversation feels stilted, a discordant symphony she doesn’t know the words to. “We’ve been together for almost three months now.”</p><p>Marissa draws meaningless shapes in the condensation of her glass, seeming to ponder a multitude of thoughts at the same time. Aster leaves her be, unsure of what to say, because while letting go was hard enough for herself, she doesn’t know what moving on is like for Marissa. Their perpendicular lines run down different paths now, crossing once and now drifting away.</p><p>“You weren’t… seeing her when we were still together, right?” Marissa finally asks, and Aster chokes.</p><p>“Excuse me?”</p><p>Marissa’s cheeks burn a furious red in the dim light of the bar. “It’s just that.. Those last few weeks, it felt like you were pulling away from me all the time, and I could never figure out why.”</p><p>“So you thought I was <em>cheating</em> on you?” The words drip from her lips like venom.</p><p>Marissa frantically shakes her head. “No, no, no—<em>of course not</em>. You’re a deacon’s kid for fucking sake. But you just… You just weren’t <em>there</em>, Aster.”</p><p>Aster thinks back to those last few weeks that they were together, where it felt like she was plugging holes on a leaky dam, knowing all the while that it’d be for naught. True, she had been focused on other things: what was happening after graduation, if she were moving back to Squahamish like her parents insisted, if Paul would expand Munsky’s sausage to California whether Ellie Chu would be proud of the person she’d become. There was so much and yet so little—Marissa and their relationship simply drifted away, like smoke to the wind.</p><p>“Then that’s why you broke up with me?” she asks.</p><p>“It just didn’t seem like we were happy anymore.” Marissa shrugs helplessly. “I didn’t want to hold either of us back, especially with graduation right around the corner. Maybe I did it to set me free, or to just… let you go. It doesn’t mean I didn’t love you though—because I did.”</p><p>There’s a heavy silence that follows that Aster just can’t take, so she leans forward and nudges Marissa’s side with her elbow, a small smile stretching across her face. “I loved you too, you know.”</p><p>Marissa flashes her a tight smile, but the tightness in her face does not abate. There’s a short pause before she licks her lips and asks, “Are you happy now, Aster?”</p><p>Aster thinks of Ellie Chu, hard at work on another project, laying in a bed and waiting for her to get home.</p><p>“Yeah,” she says softly, eyes sparkling. “I think I am.”</p><p>They drink for another hour before Marissa takes her leave back to her hotel. Aster heads over to Ellie’s apartment and greets her girlfriend with a loud groan.</p><p>“Hey you,” Ellie says when Aster opens the door. She closes her laptop and sets it aside, opening her arms as Aster climbs into bed. “You’re back early.”</p><p>Aster shrugs helplessly, too lost in the scent of vanilla that is Ellie to concentrate on much else. In the dim light of the tableside lamp, Ellie looks softer than ever, silhouetted by the moonlight peeking through the glass of the bedroom window. She wraps an arm around the back of Aster’s shoulders, fingers burying themselves deep into her dark curls, drawing shapes into her scalp. The movement is slow and relaxing, turning every part of her loose and languid against Ellie.</p><p>“Tired,” Aster says with a sigh and settles. She can’t remember the last time she was this comfortable.</p><p>“How’d the thing with Marissa go?” Ellie’s voice has a depth to it, like there’s an unspoken story in the spaces between. Aster wants to try to place it, urge Ellie to open up, but she’s so tired and just wants to sleep.</p><p>“Hmm,” Aster mumbles into the skin of Ellie’s neck, chin cushioned by the other woman’s knit sweater, and her body just sinks to sink. “Okay, I guess. I just missed you.”</p><p>Ellie goes still next to her, and the rest of Aster’s thoughts turn indiscernible as the world goes quiet.</p><p>Sleep is easy to find that night with Ellie.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>“Paul should be here in twenty if the weather holds up,” Ellie calls from the other room as Aster looks over her current project, shading in the outline of the sketch she’ll eventually end up painting. “I set up my bedroom for him.”</p><p>“Sounds great,” Aster muses and looks over at her. “Did you stash your duffel in mine?”</p><p>“Did that this morning,” Ellie says with a shrug and comes to sit beside her on the sofa, laptop tucked under her arm. She curls up into a loose ball and leans against Aster, a warm heavy weight that makes Aster’s heart pang pitifully like a happy, lovesick idiot.</p><p>With Paul coming to visit with some investors in Los Angeles about expanding Munsky’s Sausage, Ellie has since moved into Aster’s apartment for the time being, sacrificing her own space for their best friend to have a little privacy that is rare with both Aster and Ellie. Having Ellie all to herself for seven days straight seems a little bittersweet—like the spicy chocolate her mother adores, saccharine for the fact that she gets to kiss Ellie awake every morning, but bitter for the fact that she’ll have to say goodbye eventually.  </p><p>Ellie hums as she responds to an email, and Aster finds herself pulled from her work. She can’t help but stare at Ellie and the little world that they’ve created, marveling at the ease in which they seem to fit together.</p><p>Even though it’s Aster’s apartment, there’s enough of <em>Ellie</em> wedged in the corners that it’s nearly indiscernible trying to pull them apart: Ellie’s collection of books shoved in the corner of the shelf, her water bottle stacked on the kitchen island, her jacket strewn over the back of the couch, her favorite knit blanket laying over the ottoman. Even now, Ellie is wearing an old shirt of Aster’s, a soft and worn pink one from her college. Aster’s pretty sure that she even has a few Grinnell hoodies of Ellie’s stashed away somewhere.</p><p>“What’re you staring at, Flores?” Ellie’s voice breaks her silent reverie. “You’ve got a stupid smile on your face.”</p><p>“Nothing,” Aster says, shaking her head, but her smile only grows bigger. “Just thinking about how much I love you.”</p><p>It’s the first time she’s said, and it feels right in a way that few things do in her life.</p><p>Ellie is stunned into silence, looking like the scared seventeen-year-old she was so long ago, and it only makes Aster laugh.</p><p><em>I’m going to love you forever, Ellie Chu</em>, Aster thinks to herself. <em>Just try to stop me</em>.</p><p> </p><p>(Paul arrives at four in the afternoon as planned and slips into Aster’s apartment with his spare key and a giant smile plastered upon his face. “He<em>llo</em>, my favorite peopl—<em>ACK</em>!”</p><p>“Munsky!” comes two breathless, furious voices on the couch.</p><p>Fumbling with the door behind him, he covers his eyes with a hand and tries to back out of the apartment. “I didn’t see <em>anything</em>, I swear, but <em>please, please</em> just put some clothes on!”)</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>The takeaway is this: the fifth stroke of a parallelogram is everything in-between.</p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The rest of their lives are just beginning.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is a cheesy, short ending. But it's what they deserve.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Time passes by in slow, honey-dipped days, and Aster enjoys every moment of it. Whether it’s the sweet cinnamon kinds that make her crave Ellie’s lips, or the hard crisp apple ones that lead to slamming doors and raised voices, all that matters is that they are together.</p><p>If you had asked Aster years ago, when she stood on that street in Squahamish and watched Ellie walk away, she would have never predicted a future like this. One where she’s free to live her life, and Ellie chooses continually to stay by her side. It’s something that Marissa threw away, something that Aster had originally shied away from, but now she has Ellie Chu, and they are infinitely happy.</p><p>So now she takes the hard times and the good ones, sets forward to live a life entirely of her own making, and chooses to fall in love even more with Ellie.</p><p>“So when’s the wedding?” Paul asks her two years after she moving to Los Angeles. He’s visiting for a week to put together the final touches on the LA branch of Munsky’s Sausage and decided to pick her up after work for a quick jaunt around the city before Ellie get off.</p><p>They’re lounging in the bed of his pick-up truck when he finally asks the question that’s been haunting her for months now. She thinks of the little black box hidden behind the microwaveable rice bags in the kitchen because she knows Ellie would never touch it, still too insulted that Aster would’ve even thought of buying such a heathenistic thing.</p><p>Aster simply shakes her head, laughing, and tries to brush it off. She doesn’t want Paul to mention anything to Ellie before she’s even had a chance to <em>plan</em>. “You’re getting ahead of yourself, Munsky.”</p><p>“Come on.” He reaches over and nudges her, a warm smile stretching across his face. “You guys are inseparable.”</p><p>“We are.” It’s true, Aster knows it. <em>Everyone</em> does. It’s why she bought the ring originally six months ago.</p><p>“Then what’s the problem?” Paul draws his knee to his chest, wraps an arm around it, and levels her with a quizzical stare. “You’re honestly gonna sit there and tell me that there’s no wedding bells in the near future for my two best girls?”</p><p>Aster shrugs. “Baby steps, I guess?”</p><p>“Well that seems like a waste.”</p><p>“Paul, come on!” She wants to laugh it off, but he isn’t giving her an inch.</p><p>“I thought you guys were happy together.”</p><p>She hums in agreement. “We are.”</p><p>“Two years is a long time.”</p><p>“It is.”</p><p>There’s a beat of silence, and then he leans forward, warm breath tickling the shell of her ear. “Can I see the ring?” he asks finally, and she can hear the smile in his voice.</p><p>Shoulders shaking, Aster falls back against the backboard of the truck bed, her laugh echoing through the grassy knoll. Here she is, sitting next to her best friend discussing her plans to propose to her girlfriend. It’s not a life she’d ever imagined when Trig originally proposed all those years ago, but it’s one she wouldn’t trade for anything.</p><p>“Okay, okay, fine,” Aster finally gives. She props up on her elbows and levels Paul with a heavy gaze, eyes still sparkling. “I’ll show you, but in exchange, you have to help me figure this out. The proposal has to be <em>perfect</em>.”</p><p>“Oh, Aster,” Paul says. “Don’t you know by now that meddling with people’s lives is something I excel at?”</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Aster is all-to-familiar with the blue cotton sheets of Ellie’s bedroom, the ones that gleam like a sunlit sky at daybreak, that match perfectly against Ellie’s warm skin. Aster’s favorite view is Ellie stretched out across them on a morning after, all soft skin and worn edges, so perfect and happy. The memory makes Aster’s heart clench something fierce because <em>oh she loves her.</em></p><p>“I should start charging you rent,” Ellie tells her one morning after Aster wakes up, all sleepy eyes and pillow imprints on cheeks. She’s ensconced in the doorway that leads to the living room, coffee mugs held tight in both hands.</p><p>“Or we can just move in together,” Aster mumbles, already reaching for the coffee with a soft <em>thank you </em>under her breath. Ellie blinks hard as Aster smiles smugly. “Save us both some rent.”</p><p>Ellie’s lease is up at the end of the month anyway, and she’s anything but subtle.</p><p>“I’ll start bringing things over after lunch?” Ellie suggests. There’s a pen tucked behind her ear as she settles next to Aster on the bed, notebook in hand. It looks like she’s been up for a while, jotting down ideas for songs and stories, inspiration striking in that space between dreams and wakefulness.</p><p>Aster blinks. “It’s that easy to get a yes out of you?”</p><p>Ellie narrows her eyes in a mock glare over the rim of her coffee. “You think too much, you know that?”</p><p>Aster can’t answer that immediately, too busy thinking. It must be bad if <em>Ellie</em>, the Queen of In Her Head, noticed. She lays back against the headboard, staring at the coffee mug clasped between her hands, and feels the warm weight of Ellie pressed against her side.</p><p>“So what <em>is </em>on your mind?” Ellie asks.</p><p>“Nothing.”</p><p>She snorts. “I’m not stupid, Aster.”</p><p>There’s a long pause, and when Ellie goes to prod her girlfriend further, Aster blurts out: “Marry me, Ellie Chu.”</p><p>Ellie’s mouth drops open in surprise. “<em>Excuse me?!</em>”</p><p>Her face burns something fierce, and she can feel the heat from her chest to the tips of her ears. Aster chooses the coward’s way out and sets her coffee on the night table, rolls over in bed, and proceeds to try to suffocate herself between Ellie’s pillows.</p><p>“You really suck at asking me things, you know that?” Ellie accuses her from above. “It’s a yes, but <em>still</em>.”</p><p>Aster groans into the fabric.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>The wedding is a frankly extraordinary affair held in the church back in Squahamish for Aster’s parents.</p><p>Flowers and ribbon galore, veils and trains and sparkles—whatever their wedding planner tried to throw at them—but Aster really doesn’t care. She spends more time on color coordinating everything and trying to get Ellie to agree to wear a wedding dress. Ellie looks like she’d rather drown than wear one, but Aster manages to stuff her fiancée into a simple white gown just so she can have the satisfaction of taking it off that night.</p><p>(That reasoning is the <em>only</em> thing that convinces Ellie.)</p><p>Paul is their maid of honor. No one bats an eye.</p><p>He stands on the dance floor at the reception hall, a glass of champagne in one hand as he clutches a microphone in the other. With that sauve Munsky-mile smile, he starts his speech with, “I don’t know if any of you know this, but I’m actually the reason these two got together.”</p><p>And so it comes out: of one girl who paints and the other who writes, of how they learn to create a masterpiece through words and colors, of one love letter back in high school and an apartment key in Los Angeles, of how discovering yourself takes time and getting over the fear of being yourself takes longer.</p><p>It’s how two girls, both afraid to love, learned to trust their hearts. It’s how making bold strokes make the most striking pictures and how a parallelogram always comes back around.</p><p>It’s the story of Ellie Chu and Aster Flores and how they fell in love.</p><p>It’s a love story, and it’s theirs.</p><p>(Neither would have it any other way.)</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Their honeymoon is set for Venice, but Ellie takes Aster back to the hot springs for their wedding night.</p><p>They spend a few hours embraced together in its waters, naked skin pressed together, and frantic heartbeats filling the silence punctuated by long-drawn moans and soft sighs.</p><p>It’s like their first time all over again.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Ten years after their first kiss, and five years after their second, Aster sits on the edge of her and Ellie’s bed as her wife holds an opened envelope between her hands.</p><p>“New York, huh?” she says with a smile.</p><p>“New York,” Ellie confirms.</p><p>“Well then, we better start packing,” Aster tells her. “It’s a good job offer.”</p><p>“You’d go with me?”</p><p>“Ellie Chu,” Aster tells her with the utmost certainty. “Don’t you know by now that I’d follow you anywhere?”</p><p>Ellie’s smile is bold and brilliant, like the most perfect sunrise, and in it, Aster finds peace.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>.</p>
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